


And at last I feel alive

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Abandonment, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Animal Instincts, Animal Transformation, Blanket Permission, Families of Choice, Gen, Homesickness, Loss of Trust, Medical Torture, Medical Trauma, Panic Attacks, Phone Calls & Telephones, Post-Season/Series 02, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Project Cadmus (DCU) is Evil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22386202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: His time at Cadmus broke Garfield and the tiger no longer felt safe out in the open, but thankfully Cliff's stubbornness came in handy even when Garfield was miles and miles away. A phonecall never hurt anyone, and the voices of Larry, Rita and Cliff are what he really needed to hear as panic and fear threatened to consume him. It was just happenstance that Larry always knew the right thing to say, and a little bit of advice from his favourite people never hurt anyone.
Relationships: Kon-El | Conner Kent & Garfield Logan, Rita Farr & Garfield Logan & Cliff Steele & Larry Trainor
Comments: 19
Kudos: 82





	And at last I feel alive

**Author's Note:**

> So, this didn't turn out EXACTLY how I wanted, but I still enjoy the idea of it, and for what it is, I'm still pretty happy with it, but let me tell you, this is not my best work, but if I look at this fic for any longer I'm going to pull my eyes out of my head.  
> Anyway, for what's its worth, I hope you guys enjoy it and that you appreciate some good Gar angst just as much as I do.

The phones had been Cliff’s idea.

An idea that he had been so steadfast in that it caused an argument and a rift between the household. “Why can’t the kid get a phone?” he’d demanded. “I’ve heard that nowadays there are ones that you can carry with you.”

“Who the hell would he need to call?” Larry interjected, the glowing Spirit flaring in intensity to voice its own displeasure. “We have no contact with the outside world- he doesn’t know anyone.”

“Well, I think it’s a good idea,” Rita mumbled into her gin and tonic.

Though Cliff’s face was made of metal, he conveyed emotion with more intensity than almost any man, and the rage he felt resonated in his chest with a rattling of metal that sounded like a car engine roaring down a long stretch of highway. “He’ll call _us_! What if he gets in trouble and needs us to come and save his ass? What if he gets lost? What if it's an emergency? And forget all that, why can't the kid just be a normal kid?"

"He will not need one," the Chief said lowly, in that menacing way that he did. "Because he will not be leaving this house to get himself lost or in trouble or to meet new people."

From where he was sitting on the kitchen counter, swinging his legs back and forth until his heels hit the back of the counter and the vibration rang through his bones, Garfield piped up, "Do I get a say?"

" _No!"_ Cheif snapped and Garfield flinched instinctively as the room fell quiet. "I have made my decision, and I will not hear another word of this conversation. That's enough. Go to bed."

The next day, through Cliff's prompting, a mysterious green lion broke into a mobile dealer's and stole a mouthful of phones from the back room, and when he got home, Larry helped him set up the phone at the kitchen counter using a lamp and Rita found a way to memorize the new number and Cliff practised picking up the landline and punching in the number without breaking the phone, and Garfield felt like a normal kid for the first time in his life. 

Now, as Garfield knelt on the floor in his room at Titans tower, hidden from the door by the bed, clawing through his pockets for his phone as the tiger clawed at his chest, he had never been so grateful for having a phone in his life. 

Larry picked up on the second ring, but it felt like an eternity for Garfield and the tiger, waiting impatiently in a tight coil within Garfield's chest. "Hello?" 

It takes every ounce of strength Garfield had not to cry on the spot, but with the tiger's help, he managed it, and a broken laugh escaped his throat instead. "Larry? What are you doing, awake so late? It's past your bedtime, old man."

A sharp gasp was followed by the sound of a chair being scraped across tiles as Larry pulled out a chair from the dining table. "Holy shit, Gar? Is that really you?"

"Who else would it be?" Garfield laughed. "Do you often give out your home phone number?"

Larry's laugh was like a warm bath after running through the rain on a cold winters night. "How're you doing man? We all miss you here. The house hasn't been the same without you."

"I miss you too. I think about you every day," Garfield answered honestly. "But, um, Larry…" he was at a loss for what to say and panic clawed at his throat, but the tiger pressed him onwards, and kept the panic at bay. "It hasn't been going well. I… I'm not OK. I don't think I've been OK for a while."

The pause on the other end of the line was palpable and Garfield closed his eyes and leant his head against the wall as he waited in tense anticipation for a response, but the tiger soothed him, told him not to worry, growled low and gentle in his chest like an old friend. "That's not what I expected you to say," Larry said eventually, voice soft. "But I probably should have expected it. Cliff said that he had a feeling… well. Do you want to tell me what happened? Is it bad?"

This time, Garfield couldn't stop the tears that sprung to his eyes and clogged up his throat, and the tiger purred in sympathy. "I… I don't think they want me any more, Larry," Garfield managed. "I think they're trying to get rid of me."

"Woah, Gar, slow down a sec," Larry interrupted. "How the hell do you know all this? Have they told you?"

"Larry, you-" the tiger was getting agitated, annoyed that Garfield's word would be doubted, and it took all of his energy to turn his head away just in time so he didn't growl into the receiver. "You don't understand. They almost killed me once, and it wasn't their fault, they didn't mean to do it, but I think that the only reason it happened was that Rachel's dad found something in them deep down, and I think they've been secretly wanting to do that for a while."

"Rachel's dad-? You know what? That's not important. Are you OK? What did they do to you?" Larry's voice was getting sterner and sterner, and Garfield could just imagine him sitting alone at the kitchen counter, drumming his gloved fingers on the marble or digging a knife into the chopping board. 

How did Garfield say to him that no, he wasn't alright in the slightest and that he hadn't been for a very long time? That every time he lost concentration the tiger would try to push it's way out of his skin to protect him the way it never got to before? That his body thrummed with pain from the tips of his toes to the top of his head, where the round scar that remained after they removed his skull still stung with numbed pain? That every time he closed his eyes he was afraid of hearing that dreaded music and waking up to the taste of blood and the rest of the tower dead with chunks taken out of them and bite marks the right size for a tigers maw?

"They hurt me, Larry. Real bad this time. They just beat me, and beat me until I bled and then they laughed and just when I thought they were going to stop, they threw me into a glass cabinet, but…" Garfield could barely get the words out, but the tiger stopped it's pacing in his soul to calm him. "That's not the worst of it, Larry. God, it's not the worst of it."

"Then what _is_ the worst of it?" Larry pressed, sounding just as agitated as the tiger. But then his voice got distant for a moment, and Garfield was so sure that he'd left him just like everyone else in his life, and the tiger growled in warning. "What- no, it's Gar. Yes, our Gar. No, I'm already talking to him- fine, but only quickly." His voice was louder again. "Hey Gar, Rita's here. She wants to talk to you."

The name caught in his soul like a fishing like and he felt warm light bloom behind his eyelids as he heard the phone being passed over. "Rita's here?"

Rita cleared her throat away from the receiver before bringing the phone back up to her ear. "Hello, my darling. We've missed you so very much while you've been away. How's the adventuring going?"

If Larry's voice was a warm bath after running through a storm, Rita's was like curling up at a fireplace with a warm blanket and a cup of hot chocolate after a bad day. "Uh, not that great actually, Rita. I'm thinking about coming home."

"Oh dear, what's happened?" Rita sounded aghast. "Are your friends not looking after you?"

“No-,” Garfield’s voice hitched and he covered a hand with his mouth to stop the tears from pouring out. “No, Rita, they’re not. God, I wish I had never left, I wish I had listened to Chief, I wish I hadn’t been so stupid…”

There was a strangled noise on the other end and a loud slam, and Garfield had the impression that Rita’s legs had just given way from her control and she had balanced herself heavily on the counter. “Oh dear- how could they? I thought that they’d be good for you, but I can see now that I was wrong. I’m so sorry. Why do you sound so sad? Garfield, darling, you know that you can talk to us right?”

It took him a little longer than it should have for him to notice it, but tears now poured from Garfield’s eyes down his flushed cheeks to land on the ground with a splat, and he impatiently rose a hand to wipe them away. “Rita, they- they all left me alone, Rita, and I’ve never been alone for so long before, and I was… I was so scared. I thought that they wouldn’t come back. And they didn’t, not until a lot later, and… there’s this guy, Conner, who doesn’t know anything about who he was, but he’s kinda like Superman, and I had to look after him. He was asleep though, so he was fine, but then he woke up, and he hurt a lot of people because I tried to make him a Titan instead of letting him leave because I was so scared of being left alone again and…”

“Hush,” Rita soothed him, and even miles and miles away, Garfield felt himself calming at her words. “Slow down, Gar. You’re alright now. What happened? I know you very well, Gar, and I know that you’re holding something back.”

Garfield was starting to tremble so badly that he had to tighten his grip on the phone so it didn’t slip from his fingers. The words burned his throat like acid, and the tiger shifted in discomfort. “They- there are people after Conner, Rita, called Cadmus. They’re really bad people. They broke in, and they wanted to take him, but I wouldn’t let them. I tried to fight but they… they…”

“You’re alright. I’m sure you did a mighty fine effort of trying to look after your friend. You were very brave.” Rita said, and Garfield was still shocked that she somehow always knew the perfect things to say. “I’m very proud of you.”

Despite knowing that Rita couldn’t possibly see it, Garfield shook his head. “You shouldn't be,” he sniffled and blinked the tears out of his eyes. “They took us- I don’t know where it was, but it was the Cadmus labs, and they kept us there. I didn’t know what they wanted. B-but they told me that it was time I wanted things, let myself want things… they knew about the Chief, Rita, knew what he did to me, to _us_ , and I don’t… I don’t know how. I let them get to me. I’m so sorry.”

“No, no,” there was a sound like a heavy liquid being poured down the drain and then a heavy wet thump. “ _Larry_ , my arms, hold the phone for- yes, there we are, thank you dear. Garfield, darling, you have absolutely nothing to be sorry for. Nothing at all. We’ll have to have a little talk with Chief about these Cadmus people if it seems like they know each other, but I swear to high heaven, if they’ve hurt you, I will tear them all to shreds and feed them to your tiger.”

While the tiger growled in agreement, the metaphor actually made Garfield feel a little sick, and he swallowed back tears and bile before he could continue speaking. “You don’t have to. I think the others took care of them. I’m not sure. I think they’re trying not to mention them around me. Uh- Rita, they… they did something. Something really bad. I don’t… I can’t… it…”

There was a pause on the other side and then Rita let out a heavy, definitive sigh. “I feel like what you’re about to tell me is going to make the both of us sick, so just give me a moment…” the phone got distant for a moment, and then Garfield heard a high pitched holler that seemed to echo through the kitchen. “ _Cliff_!”

The familiar sound of Cliff’s booming footsteps rumbling through the hall made Garfield shut his eyes with a painful pang of longing. He had missed them all so much, but nothing could compare to Cliff’s brotherly teasing and friendly banter. “What?” he snapped, loud enough for Garfield to hear it. “I was watching Law and Order- this had better be important.”

There was a moment of familiar bickering before Rita shouted over the din, “It’s Garfield, you idiot,” and there was squabbling over the phone. Garfield waited patiently, considering he was very used to it.

“Kid?” Came Cliff’s scratchy, robotic voice a moment later. “Holy shit, it’s about time we heard from you. I was starting to worry that you’d gone and gotten yourself killed.”

“Me?” Garfield held the phone closer to his ear, almost as if the closer he held it the more likely he could transport back home, where he belonged, where he was loved. “Nah. You know how careful I am. It’s you that I’ve been worrying about, grandpa.”

The silence on the other side was worrying until Cliff broke it by clearing his throat, a sound like an old vacuum starting up. “Uh… kid… why do you sound like you’ve been crying? You’re not crying, are you? I don’t think I can deal with you crying.”

A strangled sound wretched itself from Garfield’s throat. “Please don’t go.” he found himself crying. “Please don’t leave.”

“Hold up kid, relax,” Cliff reassured instantly. “I’m not going anywhere unless you get your green ass back here and physically move me. But you’re not Jane, and you may have a tiger, but you don’t have a Hammerhead. What happened? Why do you sound like shit?”

“I don’t want to explain it again,” Garfield whispered. “I don’t really want to talk about it at all, but…”

“Alright,” Cliff said gently, and Garfield had never heard him sound so soft in all his time knowing him. “Well, then just pick up where you left off with Larry and Rita. They can fill me in on the rest later, huh? Come on, kid, don’t leave me hanging here, the suspense is killing me.”

The tiger growled and scratched at Garfield’s insides, giving up all pretence of remaining calm, and he could taste the iron-tint of blood on his tongue. If he listened hard enough. He thought he could hear the slight hissing at the nape of his neck. “I was looking after a friend, and people b-broke into our home and they took us to their… labs. They knew the Chief. They knew us. They uh… they…”

He swallowed back his words. Every time he thought of the moment he was hit with tranquillizers that flowed the familiar feeling of sedation through his veins and being dragged, kicking and screaming into the back of a van and held down with chains as they forced him into that suit before falling asleep just in time for Conner to call his name one last time…

The way the tiger fought in his chest now was the same feeling that he had felt months ago, hidden away in a glass tower where nobody could find him, and as he sat on his bedroom floor he felt his face shift and push outwards as a snout broke through his skin and green fur flecked along his cheeks. He hadn’t been able to fight before, not with that white suit strapped tightly around his whole body like a straight-jacket, and the tiger had no choice but to lay dormant and let Garfield fight his own battles, but now it was free, they were free, and an involuntary growl rose to Garfield's throat as the tiger fought once again-

They had been so scared, so scared of all the things that could have happened in that place, and Garfield could still feel the numbness of the circular cut sliced into his head that ached with a phantom pain that he could never understand, and Garfield was still scared about what could still happen if he wasn’t careful-

“Kid?” Garfield was pulled out of his thoughts but Cliff’s frantic voice through the phone, and he took deep breaths to push the tiger back where it belonged and his face snapped back into place. “ _Kid_? Where’d you go, Gar? You still there?”

“Cliff,” Garfield said eventually, and his chest was heaving and the tears were starting to fall in heavy droves. “They took me, and they hurt me. They really hurt me. They c-cut me open Cliff, and… and they changed me. They broke me. They made me all wrong. Even the tiger… it…”

A small squabble, and then Cliff’s voice was back, a grating of the side of his metal face rubbing against the phone as he subconsciously pressed it to an ear he didn’t have. “What the fuck are you talking about, Gar? You’re starting to give me the heeby-jeebies.”

Garfield sniffled again and pressed a hand to his mouth to keep himself from screaming, and his voice came out muffled and broken. “They made me do really bad things, Cliff. Things… things I didn’t want to do. That I never even thought about doing. I killed people, a lot of people, and they’ve ruined me to the point that the Chief could never reach. I… I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I didn’t even know that I was doing it at the time. But I’m scared that it’ll happen again and I won’t be able to stop.”

“Fur-ball,” Cliff said softly, as soft as his metal voice would allow, and Garfield felt the tiger purring affectionately at the familiar nickname. “You’re really starting to scare me.”

“I killed so many people,” Garfield sobbed, the affectionate nickname doing nothing to cure his pain. “I can still taste the blood.”

There was a sound like an old rusted kettle letting steam out of its spout before Cliff said, “Holy fucking shit, kid, this is not what I expected the conversation to be like when you first called us. Have you got any _good_ news?”

Laughing slightly, the first real laugh he had done in a very long time, Garfield wiped away his tears with the back of his hand. “I can turn into a snake now, so I guess that’s pretty cool?”

“A _snake_?” Cliff shouted so loudly that Garfield had to pull his ear away from the phone, and he heard the distinct sound of frantic shushing from Rita and Larry. “Fucking hell, Gar, that’s cool as shit! Why didn’t you start with that?”

“Yeah,” Garfield smiled. “It’s really cool. I don’t really know how to control it yet, but it seems calm enough. It kinda happened at a weird time, though.”

“That’s good,” Cliff said. “Do you want me to tell the Chief that he was right?”

Panic burst in a star pattern behind Garfield's eyelids and the tiger growled at the very thought. “Oh god, please don’t,” he gasped. “If you tell him, he might tell Cadmus, and they might…”

 _They might come for me again_ , is what he didn’t say, _and they might use me and break me and fuck me up so badly that I forget my own name. That they might turn me against my friends and make me hate their very existence. That the tiger might forget that we are one. That…_

Suddenly he couldn’t breathe- black dots danced across his vision, and he squeezed his eyes shut to stop the room from swimming. All he could think about was the pain, so much pain that it ate away at him from the inside, that his veins thrummed with the strength of it and his blood boiled with the memory, and all he could think about was what they made him do, what they turned him into, and how badly he would rather die than ever go through any of that again.

He must have made a noise because suddenly Cliff was swearing and something in the kitchen shattered and clanged against the wall. “Shit, Larry, take the phone back, something’s wrong and I think that I’m just making it worse.”

There was a shuffling as Cliff passed the phone to Larry and they maneuvered around Rita’s form, and then Larry’s voice was back in Garfield's ear, exactly what he needed at that very moment. “Gar, buddy, what’s wrong?”

“Larry,” Garfield moaned, running a heavy hand down his tear-slick face, hot with the exertion of his sobbing. “It _hurts_ , oh god, it hurts so much. I can’t stop thinking about all the people I hurt, the ones I killed, and how easy it was for them to come here and take me. I’m so scared that it’ll happen again- what if I’m not good enough to be a Titan? What if I’m only still here because they feel bad for me? Rachel isn’t here to vouch for me anymore, so they’re just keeping me around for pity.”

“Oh Gar,” Garfield hated the sympathy in Larry’s voice, but there was no denying that he missed hearing his voice, no matter the context. “I’m sure that’s not it.”

“I’m just so scared,” It took all of Garfield’s self-control not to gag on his words as his tears threatened to overwhelm him. “What if it happens again, Larry? What if they leave me all alone again and I’m not strong enough to fight them? What if they take me again and they make me kill more people? I don’t want to do that.”

“That’s a lot of ‘what if’s’, Gar,” Larry said. “You’re scaring yourself for nothing. None of this could be a problem. And if it is still a problem, you know that your friends would stand up and look out for you, right? Even if you don't think the others will, this new kid? Conner? From what I’ve heard you two are as thick as thieves. He’s not going to let anything happen to you.”

That did nothing to calm Garfield’s nerves, and the tiger prowled back and forth across his ribcage in its frustrating anxiety. “I’m so scared, guys. It just hurts so much. So much.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line that Garfield could hardly acknowledge as the tiger- _his_ tiger- was too busy growling in his ears. “Then you know what you need to do, don’t you? Do you need permission? I know how the Chief has drilled needing permission into you, so if you need it, then I’m more than happy to give it to you.”

Larry’s words fell on deaf ears as Garfield had no idea what he was talking about, but the tiger seemed to understand completely, and it swelled so large that Garfield could hardly contain it. “W-what?”

“Roar, Garfield,” Larry said definitely, and the words seemed to trigger something in his soul even before he finished saying it. “ _Roar_.”

With that, Garfield threw his phone to the ground as his back arched and the tiger finally broke free from the confines that Garfield was keeping it in, and they let out a roar so loud and so strong that it shook the windows in their frames, and the tiger felt so free and so open that Garfield was more than happy to retreat into the safe confines of the tigers embrace.

The animalistic sound had caught the attention of the rest of the tower, and the door to his bedroom was flung open to reveal Dick and Conner standing in the doorway, Krypto at their feet, Kory standing a little further back. “Gar?” Dick asked. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“Conner,” Garfield managed with the final moments of humanity that he had left as the tiger forced its way through his skin and his face reformed itself into that of the feral beast. “Run with me.”

Somehow, Conner knew that Garfield didn’t mean ‘run away with me’ or ‘run from me’ or anything like that- he knew that Garfield purely meant ‘run’, and he nodded. “Let’s go then,”

Finally, Garfield let the tiger take complete control and he recorded back behind the tigers eyes to watch, as the final layer of fur flashed over his face and the claws finished pushing through his fingers and his teeth forced through his gums, and the tiger sprinted from the room faster than Garfield ever could have anticipated, phone call forgotten.

They didn’t have to look behind them to check if Conner was following- they knew he would be, and that he would be happy to go wherever they took him.

The tiger roared again, so deep that Garfield could feel it where he resided in its chest, and he closed his eyes at the familiar, comforting feeling. Finally, he could do what he had missed, what he had longed for in so long.

For the first time in a very long time, he could run, he could roar-

He could _breathe_.

**Author's Note:**

> Also, why didn't anyone on my last fic tell me that I was spelling Conner's name wrong?? For some reason, Connor just feels/looks more natural to me, but FUCK, if it happens again, I need you to tell me, alright?? I was so embarrassed.


End file.
